In the News (Thu 22 Feb 18)

The Zhuang are of Tai origin, a people who migrated south from central China roughly 5000 years ago, as did the Malays.

The NanHan rule of the Zhuang was marked by minimal interference in Zhuang affairs by the Chinese rulers.

The Song developed a new way of dealing with the Zhuang that was a combination of force and appeasement, a policy that neither satisfied the aspirations of the Zhuang nor ended the savage warfare brought to the region by the Yao against the Chinese.

Zhuang, which belongs to the Tai language group, is an official language in that region.

However, use of the language is rapidly declining as the Zhuang assimilate to the HanChinese.

Zhuang had been written with ideographs that were borrowed from Han characters adopted to this language, and original characters made out by using the similar manner of construction, for more than a thousand years, similar to Vietnamese Chu Nom.

en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Zhuang_language (270 words)

Zhuang People Profile(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)

Of the remaining Zhuang, 6% are in the Wenshan Autonomous Prefecture in neighboring Yunnan, and 3% in Guangdong.

Zhuang are also found in most of the major cities of Guangxi, making up one third of the population in some.

Zhuang living in rural villages appear to be very open and responsive when they have been approached by evangelists from urban areas.

www.infomekong.com /zhuang_secondary.htm (1182 words)

Encyclopedia: Zhuang Zi(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)

Encyclopedia: Zhuang Zi Nauru, whose economy is derived almost entirely from phosphate in bird droppings, has the highest rate of unemployment in the world.

Zhuang Zi's philosophy was very influential on the development of Chinese Buddhism, especially Chan, and Zen which evolved out of Chan.

The Zhuang had apparently tested the limits of their powers in the Song era with the rising of Nong Zhigao and were willing to live within the administrative purview of the Chinese central government, providing that it was sufficiently loose to permit the clan heads to continue their local control.

The Zhuang are widely distributed throughout today's Guangxi, the Yao in isolated enclaves every where save the southeast, with a primary concentration in the northwest and secondarily in the northeast.

Zhuang, armed and trained by Han governments, would still be attractive as soldiers, but when operating on their own were increasingly reduced to the status of partisans.

Zhuang, M. Macander, T.S. Rupp, E. Kasischke, D. Verbyla, D.W. Kicklighte, and J.M. Melillo, The Role of Fire Disturbance, Climate, and Atmospheric CO in the Response of Historical Carbon Dynamics in Alaska from 1950 to 1995: A Process-based Analysis with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model, International Science Conference.

McGuire, A. Zhuang, et al, The role of fire disturbance, climate, and atmospheric CO in the response of historical carbon dynamics in Alaska from 1950 to 1995: A process-based Analysis with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model.

Mei Hua Zhuang is an ancient school of Chinese boxing which existed as early as the Han dynasty (B.C.E. Historical research shows that Mei Hua Zhuang had been secretly handed down from father to son for nearly two thousand years until the end of the Ming Dynasty.

The practitioners of Mei Hua Zhuang were among those who initiated and acted as the main forces of the famous Yi He Quan movement (Boxer Rebellion, 1898-1901).

The four functions of Mei Hua Zhuang are, the training of the body and mind, the training in abilities of attack and defense, treating diseases and the development of wisdom.

In "Ten Years", Zhuang's artistic focus remains steadfastly on the everyday, even the touristic, and especially on the banal and commonplace in the people and places he encounters.

It is reassuring and even revelatory to know that in the many years Zhuang worked shooting his panoramic fl and white group portraits of workers at danwei's (state work units) across China, he was also shooting the local environs in brilliant color.

Zhuang's anti-art style may well be the best approach to finding one's own identity within the act of observing and photographing others.

If we also accept that they can be regarded as one people with the Zhuang, as many agree, then it is probable that this ethnic group is, after the Kurds, the largest of the world's peoples who are not currently organized into their own national state.

The question, then, of when precisely it is permissible to refer to a Zhuangpeople is a complex one which easily leads to many confusing qualifications as one tries to follow the evolution of the ethnic group over a long period.

I do believe, however, that there is a sort of mainstream of Zhuang evolution, and that stream arises in the neolithic and flows to the present, though with many branches, channels, and rivulets which eventually dry in the heat of the Han intrusion into the area.

He asked that the Zhuang Tubing be recognized for their service outside the province by a temporary abrogation of taxes, and that each household in Guangxi be granted an exemption from service for one or two men so that the farming labor could be done.

Zhuang culture was sometimes now considered not as a barbarian culture, but as a local culture, a brilliant thread in the great many-hued tapestry of HanChinese cultural variants.

Zhuang literature as such was basically not collected until after 1949 when the Chinese government began to encourage a greater understanding of local folk traditions, and then most of the material collected was via oral transmissions.

The Taoist book Zhuang Zi (《莊子》) of the same name believed to be written by Zhuangzi and others.

One phrase from the book that has been popuarlized is the idiom "Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly" (莊周夢蝶 zhuang1 zhou1 meng4 die2) from the chapter "On Arranging Things" (齊物論 qi2 wu4 lun4, the second part of the book).

Zhan Zhuang can be translated as "pine tree, meditating" and is regarded as the highest level of qigong.

Master Wang claimed that Zhan Zhuang was the source of both his strength and the exquisite sensitivity required of an accomplished martial artist.

Li'sTai Chi Zhan Zhuang, an 18-posture form, is a new development for both tai chi and qigong.

www.songho.net /Tai_Chi_Zhuang.ivnu (429 words)

Guangxi: My Home Region(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)

The Zhuang are the largest minority, with up to 15 million members in the region.

Although the Zhuang are the largest ethnic minority group within China, they and the other minorities in Guangxi are said to have been assimilated into HanChinese culture more than the minorities in the other autonomous regions of China.

The Zhuang are the largest "minority nationality or people" (non-Han group) in China; in 1957 the province of Guangxi was renamed the GuangxiZhuang Autonomous Region.

A third is that by recognizing the Zhuang as an official nationality, Beijing ensured that the largest minority nationality would be an unthreatening one, unlike the recalcitrant but numerically inferior Tibetans, Mongols and Uighurs.

A fourth is that Beijing needed the Zhuang to eradicate the influence of the previous Han rulers of Guangxi.

Yiquan (pronounced yee-chuan) is an internal martial art with main principles and stages of training quite similar to those of Taijiquan and, with the exception of Zhan Zhuang, quite a lot simpler.

Zhan Zhuang in Yiquan, on the other hand, is more detailed and it is the main training tool all the way from beginner to the most advanced level.

Zhan Zhuang training of Yiquan is ideally suited for correcting all kinds of problems stemming from the imbalance between phasic muscles and postural muscles, some of which were mentioned under the 'Postural Dysfunctions' heading above but there are other benefits that result from Yiquan training.

www.yiquan.org.uk /art-zz.html (4029 words)

Philosophy East and West: Zhuang Zi and his carving of the Confucian ox.@ HighBeam Research(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)

Zhuang Zi and his carving of the Confucian ox.

In particular, Kong Zi's conception of self-cultivation expressed through the image of 'musical perfection' suggests a spontaneity that is similar to the notion of freedom pointed to by Zhuang Zi, as, for example, in his story of Butcher Ding.

However, the Confucian ideal of freedom is based on the internalization of standards and constraints, whereas Zhuang Zi's notion of freedom involves wandering between constraints out of an awareness of the relativity of all standards.